The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Trump

  • Trump holds reciprocal tariffs on Nigeria, others for 90 days, raises China’s to 125%

    Trump holds reciprocal tariffs on Nigeria, others for 90 days, raises China’s to 125%

    UNITED States (U.S.) President Donald Trump has announced a 90-day pause on the reciprocal tariffs imposed on 60 countries, including Nigeria, with the exception of China.

    Trump announced the reversal of his rattling trade policy, which took effect yesterday, in a post on Truth Social.

    However, the U.S. president kept the 10 per cent baseline tariff in place for all countries.

    “I have authorised a 90-day PAUSE, and a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of 10 per cent, also effective immediately,” he said.

    Nigeria was one of the 60 countries affected by the reciprocal tariffs with the U.S. imposing a 14 per cent tariff on goods from Nigeria, the second highest in West Africa.

    In response, the Nigerian government said it would not retaliate but use the instruments of the World Trade Organisation to call for dialogue between all parties.

    In his statement, Trump also increased tariffs imposed on China from 104 to 125 per cent and noted that the levy would continue to rise due to the country’s continued retaliation.

    The tariff increase on Chinese goods will take effect immediately, he said.

    “Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the world’s markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125 per cent, effective immediately.

    “At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realise that the days of ripping off the USA and other countries are no longer sustainable or acceptable,” he wrote.

    The higher tariffs on China came after the Asian country hiked its retaliatory duties on U.S. imports to 84 per cent from 34 per cent.

    This tariff was a response to the U.S. earlier doubling its duties on Chinese goods, bringing the total tariff rate to as much as 104 per cent.

    Read Also: How Nigeria will cushion Trump’s tariffs, by Minister

    President Trump’s reciprocal tariff imposed last Tuesday escalated the trade war between the two global giants.

    Trump described it as payback for unfair trade policies used in the past years. However, several countries retaliated with a levy on U.S. imports.

    Earlier yesterday, the European Union approved a 25 per cent tariff on a broad range of U.S. goods as its first countermeasure against Trump’s reciprocal tariffs.

    The bloc imposed a 25 per cent duty on U.S. cars, steel and aluminium.

    The levy also affected imports from the U.S., such as soybeans, sweet corn, rice, almonds, orange juice, cranberries, tobacco, iron, steel, aluminum, certain boats and vehicles, textiles, and certain clothes, and various types of makeup.

    The total value of US goods affected by the EU tariffs is 22.1 billion euros, based on the EU’s 2024 import data from Eurostat.

    However, this is less than 26 billion euros of EU metals exports hit by Trump’s tariffs.

  • Trump presidency and global political economy

    Trump presidency and global political economy

    • By Lekan Olayiwola

    Relations among various nations of the world and the right to shape or determine how the world is organized ultimately depends on a nation’s ability to acquire or project its power over its counterparts either coercively in terms of military show of force, or persuasively through diplomatic, commercial or other soft influence.

    The notion of “great power” does not exist in a vacuum. Like authority, power derives from certain sources which are universally recognized and indisputable. Otherwise, it is challenged only at some great cost or reprisal. Social scientists have variously identified such definitive sources of power in the global political economy.

    Essentially, there are three broad ways to determine what a great power in the global political economy is. The first one is the possession of a quantitative power base or the ability to control outcomes. While the former relies for its validity on factors such as monetary reserves, trade as a proportion of Gross National Product (GNP), share of world trade, share of world GNP, production of raw materials or manufactures, the latter can only be inferred from historical evidence.

    However, there is a second view of what defines a great power in the global political economy. This view argues that prestige, rather than power, is the decisive factor. The geopolitical competition between China and the United States of America is an example of the struggle for the top place in the hierarchy of prestige in the international system.

    Still, there is a third concept of transnational movements that act as a social force. These non-state actors are neither measured in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) nor do they lay claim to territories or large populations, yet they impinge on national governments and the international order leveraging individuals of considerable international stature including the richest men in the world like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, etc, public concerns over social issues, control of international capital, environmental activism or advocacy networks etc.

    From the foregoing sources of national power can be formulated using one of two key metrics: in the first instance, a great power in the current global political economy is that state that has an enormous balance of international trade advantage through its state-owned enterprises (SOEs) which enable it to limit export/import activities with grave economic or strategic consequence to international trading partners.

    Read Also: INEC delineation: Uproar as Itsekiris shutdown 28,000 bpd facility in Delta

    In the second instance, a great power is that state that has unilaterally succeeded in or is capable of, dominating the structures that shape international political and economic order through its leadership in four critical areas of global dominance, namely: security, means of production, finance and credit and knowledge and information.

    A case could also be made for non-state actors (including NGOs, IGOs etc.) that make efforts to compel repressive states, for instance, to comply with standardized human rights principles or to mobilize states and international organizations for social or environmental issues of public concern. However, the capacity of transnational movements or global activists to muster states or international organizations to achieve their objectives presumes that an international standard to which it could hold its targets already exists. Otherwise, these non-state actors seek to establish norms, especially at the early stage of their campaign.

    Looking at the current landscape of the global economy, four states qualify as a great power: United States of America, China, Russia and India. But a critical analysis shows America’s position relative to the other three.

    China

    During the Cold War, the pattern of trade correlated with the political relationship between states and powerful states used economic statecraft to manipulate their powerless trade partners. Today, however, despite the global trade agreements of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to curtail trade wars, China in flagrant disregard for WTO’s non-discriminatory rules continues to bully its international trade partners at home and around the world with impunity. A few instances will make China’s great power status apparent. China leverages the vulnerabilities that interdependence creates to prey on its trade partners. For example, in 2010, China cut off exports of rare earth’s minerals to Japan over some territorial disputes.

    Also, China hurt the Norwegian economy by banning its export of Salmon and forcing Norway’s market share of salmon in China to plummet from over 90 percent in 2010 to under 30 percent in 2013. This was a retaliatory move against the award of the Nobel Prize to a Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo. China’s predation extends even into the sporting arena: its ban on broadcast of NBA’s games to China’s middle class over what it deemed an unfavourable tweet by Houston Rocket’s coach over the gagging of Hong Kong cost the NBA millions of dollars.

    China’s market size, production capabilities, huge military budgets, rising influence in global political economy, ownership of state enterprises and the increasing interdependence in international trade enables it to deal with its partners in a predatory fashion. Yet no one is predicting the demise of China’s global influence based on its decades-long protectionist stance on its local economy and aggressive (and sometimes dubious) march on international trade. On the contrary, China is touted to take over from the United States as the world’s superpower.

    United States of America

    Measured against the backdrop of its declining GDP which stood at about 25% over the last decade and other economic indicators like balance of payments deficits, the United States of America would appear to have fallen short of what could be defined as a “global power.” However, it should be noted that the standard that held true in the mid-twentieth century is no longer tenable in the twenty-first. The data on the transnational corporations (TNCs) emanating from a state rather than the state’s economic performance per se reveal where a state’s real power base lies. The rise of TNCs along with the proliferation of transnational modular production networks and the globalization of corporate ownership has cast in a shadow, if not obliterated the relevance of national accounts such as balance of trade and GDP.

    The notion that America’s hegemony is waning on the basis of its dwindling GDP and other economic metrics alone is misconceived. Even with Trump’s bull in a China shop trade policies, America still effectively controls the four aspects of the structural power that enables a state to choose and to shape the structures of the global political economy within which other states, their political institutions, their economic enterprises, and (not least) their professional people have to operate.

    Three-quarters of the industrial world’s assets are denominated in dollars. U.S banks hold the lion share of these assets. This confers enormous advantage on the U.S. as a great power to move global markets, control the supply of credit and, set agenda for global economy as American privately or publicly held enterprises continue to dominate access to the largest and most innovative capital markets in the world.

    In terms of security, the U.S. dominates the arsenal of both nuclear and conventional weaponry even if China is aggressively trying to outdo the U.S. American educational institutions continue to lead the world on the knowledge frontier. Finally, U.S. still accounts for the largest ownership of TNCs in the world with marked dominance of even Chinese market.

    Besides China, Russia and India are two other prominent state actors that also wield considerable power in the global political economy. For now, however, they only exercise great influence on a regional level. Russia, for instance, uses its control of vast oil and gas reserves and supply to bully some European countries, most notably Ukraine which it eventually invaded in 2021 and continues to occupy its sovereign territories after almost four years of a war of attrition. However, its power is greatly checkmated by sanctions by the U.S. and European Union.

    India, on the other hand, exerts some of its economic powers on countries that look to it for credit by deciding whether or not its Export-Import Bank would grant such credit based on how that country has voted on issues which India is most interested in at the United Nations.

    Although there has been speculations that President Trump’s combative “Liberation Day” global tariff announcement as well as the dismantling of America’s soft power foreign policy mechanisms, the United States will remain the foremost great power for a while and China will continue to be a strong challenger based on some structural criteria.

    •Olayiwola is a peace and conflict researcher and practitioner.

  • Trump presidency and global political economy

    Trump presidency and global political economy

    • By Lekan Olayiwola

    Relations among various nations of the world and the right to shape or determine how the world is organized ultimately depends on a nation’s ability to acquire or project its power over its counterparts either coercively in terms of military show of force, or persuasively through diplomatic, commercial or other soft influence.

    The notion of “great power” does not exist in a vacuum. Like authority, power derives from certain sources which are universally recognized and indisputable. Otherwise, it is challenged only at some great cost or reprisal. Social scientists have variously identified such definitive sources of power in the global political economy.

    Essentially, there are three broad ways to determine what a great power in the global political economy is. The first one is the possession of a quantitative power base or the ability to control outcomes. While the former relies for its validity on factors such as monetary reserves, trade as a proportion of Gross National Product (GNP), share of world trade, share of world GNP, production of raw materials or manufactures, the latter can only be inferred from historical evidence.

    However, there is a second view of what defines a great power in the global political economy. This view argues that prestige, rather than power, is the decisive factor. The geopolitical competition between China and the United States of America is an example of the struggle for the top place in the hierarchy of prestige in the international system.

    Still, there is a third concept of transnational movements that act as a social force. These non-state actors are neither measured in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) nor do they lay claim to territories or large populations, yet they impinge on national governments and the international order leveraging individuals of considerable international stature including the richest men in the world like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, etc, public concerns over social issues, control of international capital, environmental activism or advocacy networks etc.

    From the foregoing sources of national power can be formulated using one of two key metrics: in the first instance, a great power in the current global political economy is that state that has an enormous balance of international trade advantage through its state-owned enterprises (SOEs) which enable it to limit export/import activities with grave economic or strategic consequence to international trading partners.

    In the second instance, a great power is that state that has unilaterally succeeded in or is capable of, dominating the structures that shape international political and economic order through its leadership in four critical areas of global dominance, namely: security, means of production, finance and credit and knowledge and information.

    A case could also be made for non-state actors (including NGOs, IGOs etc.) that make efforts to compel repressive states, for instance, to comply with standardized human rights principles or to mobilize states and international organizations for social or environmental issues of public concern. However, the capacity of transnational movements or global activists to muster states or international organizations to achieve their objectives presumes that an international standard to which it could hold its targets already exists. Otherwise, these non-state actors seek to establish norms, especially at the early stage of their campaign.

    Looking at the current landscape of the global economy, four states qualify as a great power: United States of America, China, Russia and India. But a critical analysis shows America’s position relative to the other three.

    China

    During the Cold War, the pattern of trade correlated with the political relationship between states and powerful states used economic statecraft to manipulate their powerless trade partners. Today, however, despite the global trade agreements of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to curtail trade wars, China in flagrant disregard for WTO’s non-discriminatory rules continues to bully its international trade partners at home and around the world with impunity. A few instances will make China’s great power status apparent. China leverages the vulnerabilities that interdependence creates to prey on its trade partners. For example, in 2010, China cut off exports of rare earth’s minerals to Japan over some territorial disputes.

    Also, China hurt the Norwegian economy by banning its export of Salmon and forcing Norway’s market share of salmon in China to plummet from over 90 percent in 2010 to under 30 percent in 2013. This was a retaliatory move against the award of the Nobel Prize to a Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo. China’s predation extends even into the sporting arena: its ban on broadcast of NBA’s games to China’s middle class over what it deemed an unfavourable tweet by Houston Rocket’s coach over the gagging of Hong Kong cost the NBA millions of dollars.

    Read Also:Anti-trump protests rock U.S. cities

    China’s market size, production capabilities, huge military budgets, rising influence in global political economy, ownership of state enterprises and the increasing interdependence in international trade enables it to deal with its partners in a predatory fashion. Yet no one is predicting the demise of China’s global influence based on its decades-long protectionist stance on its local economy and aggressive (and sometimes dubious) march on international trade. On the contrary, China is touted to take over from the United States as the world’s superpower.

    United States of America

    Measured against the backdrop of its declining GDP which stood at about 25% over the last decade and other economic indicators like balance of payments deficits, the United States of America would appear to have fallen short of what could be defined as a “global power.” However, it should be noted that the standard that held true in the mid-twentieth century is no longer tenable in the twenty-first. The data on the transnational corporations (TNCs) emanating from a state rather than the state’s economic performance per se reveal where a state’s real power base lies. The rise of TNCs along with the proliferation of transnational modular production networks and the globalization of corporate ownership has cast in a shadow, if not obliterated the relevance of national accounts such as balance of trade and GDP.

    The notion that America’s hegemony is waning on the basis of its dwindling GDP and other economic metrics alone is misconceived. Even with Trump’s bull in a China shop trade policies, America still effectively controls the four aspects of the structural power that enables a state to choose and to shape the structures of the global political economy within which other states, their political institutions, their economic enterprises, and (not least) their professional people have to operate.

    Three-quarters of the industrial world’s assets are denominated in dollars. U.S banks hold the lion share of these assets. This confers enormous advantage on the U.S. as a great power to move global markets, control the supply of credit and, set agenda for global economy as American privately or publicly held enterprises continue to dominate access to the largest and most innovative capital markets in the world.

    In terms of security, the U.S. dominates the arsenal of both nuclear and conventional weaponry even if China is aggressively trying to outdo the U.S. American educational institutions continue to lead the world on the knowledge frontier. Finally, U.S. still accounts for the largest ownership of TNCs in the world with marked dominance of even Chinese market.

    Besides China, Russia and India are two other prominent state actors that also wield considerable power in the global political economy. For now, however, they only exercise great influence on a regional level. Russia, for instance, uses its control of vast oil and gas reserves and supply to bully some European countries, most notably Ukraine which it eventually invaded in 2021 and continues to occupy its sovereign territories after almost four years of a war of attrition. However, its power is greatly checkmated by sanctions by the U.S. and European Union.

    India, on the other hand, exerts some of its economic powers on countries that look to it for credit by deciding whether or not its Export-Import Bank would grant such credit based on how that country has voted on issues which India is most interested in at the United Nations.

    Although there has been speculations that President Trump’s combative “Liberation Day” global tariff announcement as well as the dismantling of America’s soft power foreign policy mechanisms such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), United States Institute for Peace (USIP), Voice of America (VOA) and withdrawal from initiatives of several multilateral organizations would erode the status of America in the global economy, the United States will remain the foremost great power for a while and China will continue to be a strong challenger based on some structural criteria.

    Whereas China’s power rests on the vulnerabilities of global interdependence and its advantages in the world’s modular production systems, the strength of the U.S. is more fundamental, pervasive and manifests in dominance of the global security, financial, production and educational systems.

    • Olayiwola is a peace and conflict researcher and practitioner. He can be reached via lekanolayiwola@gmail.com
  • Trump threatens China with further 50% tariffs

    Trump threatens China with further 50% tariffs

    As global trade and tariff war rages on, US President Donald Trump Monday threatened to impose an additional 50% tariff on China, should Beijing fail to withdraw its 34% retaliatory tariffs on the US.

    China announced on Friday that it would be imposing tariffs on Washington after the White House said that from 9 April it’d put 34% levies on all goods from Beijing.

    If enacted, many US companies bringing in goods from China face a tax of at least 104% – roughly doubling their cost in a matter of months.

    Read Also: Trump and the Nigerian Christian

    Meanwhile, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said that Europe is ready to negotiate with Washington.

    She stressed that they’ve offered “zero-for-zero tariffs” for industrial goods the bloc exports to the US.

    The bloc is “always ready for a good deal”, she says, adding that they are prepared to respond with countermeasures.

    As a reminder, the EU was identified by President Donald Trump as one of the “worst offenders” and it’ll face 20% tariffs on goods it sells to the US. It’s also subject to 25% tariffs on its steel, aluminium and derivative products.

    Von der Leyen says the EU will “protect ourselves against indirect effects through trade diversion.”

  • Anti-trump protests rock U.S. cities

    Anti-trump protests rock U.S. cities

    Scores of people took part in protests against President Donald Trump and Elon Musk across all 50 states and globally on Saturday, organized by a pro-democracy movement in response to what they call a “hostile takeover” and attack on American rights and freedoms.

    Over 1,400 “Hands Off!” mass-action protests were held at state capitols, federal buildings, congressional offices, Social Security’s headquarters, parks and city halls throughout the entire country – anywhere “we can make sure they hear us,” organizers said. “Hands Off!” demands “an end to this billionaire power grab.”

    “Whether you are mobilized by the attacks on our democracy, the slashing of jobs, the invasion of privacy, or the assault on our services – this moment is for you,” the event flyers state. “We are setting out to build a massive, visible, national rejection of this crisis.”

    Nearly 600,000 people had signed up to attend the events, some of which took place in major cities like London and Paris, according to Indivisible, one of the organizations leading the movement in collaboration with a nationwide coalition that includes civil rights organizations, veterans, women’s rights groups, labor unions and LGBTQ+ advocates.

    Read Also: Trump tariffs send global stocks crashing for second consecutive day

    CNN has not been able to independently verify how many people attended Saturday’s demonstrations, but “Hands Off!” organizers say that “millions” of people turned up from coast to coast.

    Organizers say they have three demands: “an end to the billionaire takeover and rampant corruption of the Trump administration; an end to slashing federal funds for Medicaid, Social Security, and other programs working people rely on; and an end to the attacks on immigrants, trans people, and other communities.”

    Tariffs: 50 nations seek talks

    Over 50 nations have reached out to the White House to begin trade talks since United States (U.S.) President Donald Trump rolled out sweeping new tariffs, top officials said yesterday as they defended levies that wiped out nearly $6 trillion in value from U.S. stocks last week and downplayed economic fallout.

    During yesterday morning talk shows, Trump’s top economic advisers sought to portray the tariffs as a savvy repositioning of the U.S. in the global trade order.

    They also tried to minimise the economic fallout from last week’s tumultuous rollout, ahead of today’s expected bumpy opening of Asian stock markets.

    Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said more than 50 nations had started negotiations with the U.S. since last Wednesday’s announcement, putting Trump in a position of power.

    Neither Bessent nor the other officials named the countries or offered details about the talks. However, holding simultaneous negotiations with so many countries at once could potentially pose a huge logistical challenge for the Trump administration. It is not clear how long such talks would last.

    Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te yesterday offered zero tariffs as the basis for talks with the U.S., pledging to remove trade barriers and saying Taiwanese companies will raise their U.S. investments.

  • Trump and the Nigerian Christian

    Trump and the Nigerian Christian

    It is a pity that we have to discuss the Nigerian surrender to tyranny in another land. But that is the case with Donald Trump. He just released for the world a slew of tariffs. For Nigeria, he gave us 14 percent. When I read it, I had pity on Nigerians in diaspora.

    I pity more the Christians who voted for him. They were the persons who thought they were voting for God. Rather they were voting in their hater, hugging the demon. For one, the tariffs will jack up the cost of their food. So, the garri, ewedu, ogbono and goat meat will now force them to dig deeper into their pockets to secure a seat on the dinner table.

    That will take some slice away from the money they will send to pay that school fee or that rent in Lagos or Enugu. It is not that alone that worries this essayist. It is the result of a delusion.

    The church leaders told their folks to vote for the party of God, apologies to Saint Augustine. Nigerians abhor racism because they are victims. They voted in a racist. The reason, and genuinely too, they were afraid of the scourge of the gay, and the ferocity of abortions. Some of their children had begun to change to lesbians, and their boys are liking boys. Their girls are sweet on girls. The scripture won’t have it. The parents won’t stomach it.

    Therefore, forget the fear of race. Take shelter under the shadow of the almighty. But they were mistaken. First, they did not know that race, and people like Nigerians who are now in the Japa mode are making the bigots like Trump quake. They are afraid of a post-racial society.

    They want a Lilly-white paradise. Trump was going to give it to them. But while the blacks and many Hispanics were voting on one side of culture, that is a genuine love of Christ, the whites were voting on another. They had a genuine fear, not of God, but of a society where Trump himself feared when he said, “we won’t have a country anymore.”

    The whites were voting for man in the name of God. The same blacks, by no means a majority, voted for God but ended up endorsing a white supremacy. It is the irony of democracy. We can call this the great delusion.

    Now, the same Republican Party that invited a Nigerian gospel singer to entertain them, mostly white audiences in Trump’s inauguration, is now sending their dogs after the Christians in New York. They worship in fear, not the sort of fear that God said we should fear Him with. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. This fear is evil.

    Read Also: Edo moves to resolve dispute over ceding of oil wells to Delta state

    It is the archaeology of the past that we are seeing today in the United States. Those who belonged to a time of fear and tyranny, the whips of slavery and suffocation of racial contempt. We cannot say the Nigerians knew that they will also work in fear, eat their garri while thinking whether the ghouls are at their doorstep, or work and expect the call of the wild man of the ICE.

    During the elections, many of those polled said they were going to vote mainly because of cost of living. The cost of things were too high. Costs had dwarfed their paychecks and bank accounts. They loathed Biden for making life so hard. But a few months in, the man says costs would continue to go high, yet the man’s approval rating is still holding up. What does that say? That they like what he is doing by sacking a top black military general, they cherish the fear in the streets, the hounding of those who lashed out at the American government in the media, immigrants who protested Israeli carnage, universities who continue to bring the foreigners into their country.

    Trump is avowedly against democracy, but he needs democracy in his own image. Hence he despised the elections he lost and exaggerates the one he won. Some are afraid he might outlaw an election. He is after lawyers, media, judges. He does not care if the system fails, so long as he succeeds.

    This is the flipside of democracy. It does not always work as democracy. Hence Winston Churchill said, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” Humans are not natural democrats. Democracy has been a blip in human history, and it may leave us if we do not protect it. As Maxim Gorky wrote, “the only people who deserve freedom are those who fight for it every day.”

    The church in America is divided, and it has always been so. But today, it is showing a side of victory that is appalling. This is because systems are more about people than about law, justice and institutions.  When a human acts like Hobbes’ leviathan, systems pack up, as we saw under Hitler, Franco and Mussolini. Some of the colourful tyrants of today were voted in, like Putin, Erdogan, Duterte and Orban. Democracy voted out democracy in ancient Greece. We are seeing it in America today.

    Hence the church should be careful how it endorses candidates. The Nigerian church leaders who counselled voting for Trump are struggling with church attendance with the implication for faith, especially for tithes and offerings.

    In the US, the white church leaders see their mission to save the culture for Christ. In his book, The False White Gospel, Jim Wallis demonstrates how white church leaders choose career over integrity. If they support a multi-racial ethos, they will lose their jobs. The spiritual takes a back step to money. Some live in denial. In his new biography titled: Reagan, Max Boot says Reagan said he was not aware of racism in the 1930’s. This is the same man who campaigned in Mississippi decades later to proclaim, “I believe in state’s rights,” a coda for racism.

    When big men take over democracy, they must act like beasts. They must also be populist beasts. It is populism that brought Trump, Duterte, Erdogan and Orban. It is populism that lionised Hitler. When beasts take on democracy, they are worse, just like Samuel Johnson defined them. “He who makes himself a beast gets rid of the pain of being a man.”

    Hence Trump is tearing apart people’s lives and is still playing golf. It is variety of madness. Michel Foucault, the tormented genius, tracked the history of mad people in his classic Madness and Civilisation. He showed that definitions of madness have changed from age to age. I wonder how he will characterize madness of the trump iteration.

    Shakespeare and the Greek Playwrights knew some of them, playwrights like Sophocles and Aeschylus. But Shakespeare gave us King Lear about a father and king who gives inheritance to the daughters who loath him and dispatches the only one who loves him. In creative tour de force, he makes Lear in sync with a fool as he loses his sight.

  • Trump presents ‘Gold Card’ for rich immigrants to U.S.

    Trump presents ‘Gold Card’ for rich immigrants to U.S.

    U.S. President Donald Trump has presented a “Gold Card” that would give rich immigrants the right to stay in the United States indefinitely.

    “For 5 million dollars this could be yours,” he said on Thursday on board the presidential aircraft Air Force One.

    Several videos published in the U.S. media showed Trump holding out the golden card to reporters, which also carries an image of his face.

    He also referred to it as the “Trump card.”

    Read Also: Canada will match Trump’s 25% auto tariff, says PM Carney

    The cards would probably come out in less than two weeks, he said.

    Trump previously presented his plans for the card in February.

    The programme may be intended to replace the previous EB5 investor visa and also opens up a path to citizenship.

    The card is aimed at wealthy people and those with special skills whose benefactors – be they companies or individuals – are prepared to pay for their visa.

    (dpa/NAN)

  • Canada will match Trump’s 25% auto tariff, says PM Carney

    Canada will match Trump’s 25% auto tariff, says PM Carney

    • EU leaders condemn U.S. trade war

    A day after United States President Donald Trump’s Liberation Day tariff rollouts, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Thursday that Canada will match U.S. President Donald Trump’s 25 percent auto tariffs with a tariff on vehicles imported from the United States.

    This came as Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez led European leaders in condemning Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs.

    Sanchez, whose country sells large amounts of car parts, steel and chemicals to the U.S., described the move to bring in reciprocal tariffs on imported goods from the EU as “unintelligent” and “a return to 19th-Century protectionism”.

    On March 27, Trump announced sweeping plans to impose a permanent 25 percent tariff on all cars imported into the United States. The tariffs will take effect on April 2.

    Addressing the reporters at the White House, the president said, “What we’re going to be doing is a 25 per cent tariff on all cars that are not made in the United States.

    This will be permanent” while adding, “We start off with a 2.5 per cent base, which is what we’re at, and go to 25 per cent.”

    Read Also: Tinubu’s strategy to improve healthcare in Niger Delta, by First Lady

    Commenting on the neighbouring nation’s relentless tariff move, Carney said, “Given the prospective damage to their own people, the American administration should eventually change course,” Carney said. “Although their policy will hurt American families, until that pain becomes impossible to ignore, I do not believe they will change direction, so the road to that point may indeed be long. And will be hard on Canadians just as it will be on other partners of the United States.”

    Trump’s tariffs set a baseline tariff of 10 per cent on all goods coming to the U.S. – but many countries saw the percentage rise further, such as China which was landed with a 34 per cent tariff.

    Yesterday, EU leaders reacted with disappointment as they faced questions on how they would respond to protect their economies.

    “This tariff attack by the US administration makes no distinction between friends and enemies, it doesn’t discriminate based on ideology or trade balance; it’s against everyone and everything,” said Sanchez.

    Spain’s comments were the latest in a string of condemnations from EU leaders which included a sharp rebuke from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who said consequences “will be dire for millions of people”.

    Manfred Weber, president of the bloc’s largest party, EPP, said: “To our American friends, today isn’t liberation day – it’s resentment day. Donald Trump’s tariffs don’t defend fair trade; they attack it out of fear and hurt both sides of the Atlantic. Europe stands united, ready to defend its interests, and open to fair, firm talks.”

     “The recent tariffs decision by the US resident is in my view fundamentally wrong and it is an attack on a trade system that has created prosperity all round the world, itself an American achievement,” he said.

  • Trump, Putin and Zelenskyy in the eyes of the world

    Trump, Putin and Zelenskyy in the eyes of the world

    Foreign policy hardly plays any significant role in elections these days in most democracies unless the issue was really of an existential nature. Elections are won these days on bread and butter issues. This is unlike in the past when wars were fought to “make the world safe for democracy” or such idealistic slogans. The last elections in the USA was won on Trump’s promise to reduce inflation, particularly food inflation, and to bring prosperity to working class Americans through increased manufacturing jobs in the USA by so raising tariffs that any company that wants to sell in the American market would have to go  into production in America to make their goods competitive Labour prices would automatically go up when he removes illegal immigrants depressing the cost of labour and living wages would have to be paid to workers and that this will favour the workers. Of course he had a hidden agenda of making white America great again by removing illegal aliens who are mostly from the Third World.

    In the case of Vladimir Putin, his popularity is not based on his democratic credentials. Although, I have a feeling he could win an election on the basis of his wanting to restore Russian historical glory of the past from the Romanov Empire of Czarist Russia to the Soviet times even though like most empires, they were not based on the loyalty and support of the subject nationalities and the people. This nationalistic feeling would have made up for the oppression and economic deprivation common in the Czarist and Soviet Communist regimes. Empires in Europe and elsewhere from the British, French and German periods of domination in Europe appealed to their people on the claims of the ships and soldiers they could mobilise for war. Putin’s popularity is based on the political stability his regime has provided compared with the chaos that accompanied the collapse of communism in Russia and Eastern Europe.

    Whatever credentials Volodymyr Zelenskyy has are not based on proven democratic support but on the fact that he is a war-time hero. He was elected during an ongoing crisis of existential challenges and war-time exigencies have prevented his country re-electing and validating his democratic support or throwing him out of office. His heroic efforts at holding his country together in the face of overwhelming military challenges from Russia and Russian nationalist insurgents in Eastern parts of the country encouraged by mother Russia’s inspired  separatist sentiments.

    The picture of a small country being bullied by a former imperial country draws the kind of sympathy of a David fighting a Goliath.  The recent bullying of Zelenskyy on national television by the American president and the vice president to toe the American line or be made to face the music of slaughter by a much powerful Russian military has further solidified support for Zelenskyy at home and internationally. If the public has a vote, Zelenskyy would win hands down but in big international competition of the sort faced by Zelenskyy, he has no chance of winning unless the situation changes.

    There are signs the situation may change. Right now, President Putin appears not to want a settlement. What he seems to want is total surrender by Ukraine. He seems to deliberately delay the peace offer by President Trump of some form of an armistice based on ceasefire and maintenance of the military status quo. This is in favour of Russia which currently occupies about 20% of Ukraine’s territory adjacent to Russia in Eastern Ukraine. Trump’s suggestion for stoppage of bombing of energy and transportation systems and civilian infrastructure has only been observed in their breaches by Russia. Opening up of the Black Sea corridor has also been tied up with international removal of sanctions on Russia.  Putin ought to know that Trump who is virtually at war with other leaders in Europe is not in a position to lift the economic sanctions on Russia which are led by Europe. Russia has also linked ceasefire negotiations with peace treaty after the war including the final status of Ukraine including the limitations of what kind of military forces Ukraine should keep.  He also wants Trump to guarantee Ukraine’s ban forever from joining NATO which Trump without discussing with Ukraine and Europe has previously offered. These outrageous demands make nonsense of all the sacrifices of Ukraine since 2014 and her loss of territories and military personnel and the destruction of Ukraine by Russia through aerial bombing, artillery fire and missiles.

    Read Also: Hamas seeks global resistance against Trump’s plan in Gaza

     Since Trump has boxed himself in by campaigning that he would end the war in 24 hours and that Trump would listen to him alone, he is definitely under pressure to deliver. His boasting on his policy of “diplomacy through power” is facing the hardest test. If Putin humiliates him, he may be tempted as he had publicly stated, to cripple Putin through an attack on the Russian economy. He says he would unleash American oil weapon by flooding the oil market by American overproduction thus bringing down the oil fuelled war machine of Russia by apparently supplying Western Europe and possibly India. There is nothing he can do about China buying oil from Russia. The second option he has is that he may increase the supply of lethal weapons to Ukraine including the weapons that the former president, Joe Biden, was unwilling or reluctant to supply and finally suggesting of much more American military and financial support for Ukraine short of putting American military on the European theatre.

    The question is – suppose these don’t work? Certainly a capitalist in the White House would not want to lose everything in a possible thermonuclear war where there would be no winners. Trump would not risk a nuclear war with Russia because of defending a country faraway in Eastern Europe almost remembering Neville Chamberlain and his abandonment of Czechoslovakia in the face of Adolf Hitler’s threat in 1938.

    The war can of course end if Ukraine realises the futility of its situation and reaches a modus vivendi with Russia like the other 14 former states of the old Soviet Russian Empire. Russia can of course go through internal political upheaval in which Putin loses power and a post-Putin regime signs a peace treaty with a Ukraine that is under a friendly regime. All things are possible in a political and military situation.

  • I’m not joking about third term as U.S. president, says Trump

    I’m not joking about third term as U.S. president, says Trump

    President Donald Trump yesterday repeated his suggestion he might seek a third term as United States president, which would defy the two-term limit stipulated in the United States’ Constitution.

    In a yesterday morning phone call with NBC News, Trump said: “I’m not joking,” when asked to clarify a remark on seeking another term. He added: “There are methods which you could do it.”

    The 78-year-old billionaire has a long history of suggesting he might serve more than two terms, but yesterday’s remarks – followed by comments to reporters aboard Air Force One – were the most concrete in terms of referring to plans in place to achieve the goal.

    Trump has launched his second presidency with an unprecedented demonstration of executive power, using the world’s richest man Elon Musk to dismantle swaths of the government, and said his supporters want even more.

    “We have almost four years to go and that’s a long time but despite that, so many people are saying you’ve got to run again. They love the job we’re doing,” Trump said yesterday aboard the presidential jet, apparently referring to his political allies and supporters.

    Trump appeared to wave off a reporter’s question about whether he is planning not to leave office on January 20, 2029, the next Inauguration Day, saying: “I’m not looking at that, but I’ll tell you, I have had more people ask me to have a third term.”

    Earlier in the day, Trump told NBC he had been presented with plans that would allow him to seek re-election.

    When the network asked Trump of a possible scenario whereby Vice-President JD Vance would run for president and then abdicate the role to Trump, the president said “that’s one” method.

    Read Also: How to improve border security, by Tunji-Ojo

    He added that “there are others,” but refused to share further details.

    Amending the U.S. Constitution to allow a third presidential term would require a two-thirds majority in both the House of Representatives and Senate, which Trump’s Republican Party does not have, or a constitutional convention called by two thirds of the states that would propose changes to the charter.

    Both routes appear to be unlikely, given the current number of states and Congressional seats under Republican control.

    Whether he goes through Congress or the states, he would then require ratification from three-quarters of all state legislatures.

    A constitutional convention has never been successfully called in the United States, where all 27 constitutional amendments have been passed by the congressional method.

     In January, days after Trump took office, Republican Andy Ogles of Tennessee introduced a House joint resolution to amend the constitution to allow presidents up to three terms.